Let the Devil Dance Again
by Silberias
Summary: Sherlock has been gone for five long years, and the Molly he comes home to is not the Molly he left. Her heart used to have space for him, but does it now? Sherlolly from a prompt over on tumblr.
1. Let the Devil Dance Again

Prompt from anaxibiaclark over on tumblr, and I hope I in some small way did justice to what you wanted! In the meantime, there've been some requests that I continue this and all I can say is that I'll think it over. There has to be a place to go with a story like this, for me, and I've got a lot of other things on my to-do list. So we'll see.

Enjoy!

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Sherlock had spent several weeks with his brother doing debriefings—who had been eliminated or otherwise neutralized and where. What sorts of organizations had he run into and how strong did he estimate them to be? Then his brother had given him a sobering week or so to think on how he wanted to reenter his life.

Who did he want to regain contact with? Who could leave well enough alone?

Obvious answers were John and Mrs. Hudson—people he wished were his own blood relatives. A few others among his old university friends and colleagues around The Met and Bart's.

"And what of Molly Hooper, Sherlock?"

"She's none of your concern."

"But is she of yours?"

Sherlock glanced at his brother, trying to read just what he was implying from the simple comment. Mycroft was nearly unreadable as always, but something about his manner told Sherlock to get into contact with Molly first before anyone else.

She'd been promoted in the time he'd been away, to an assistant to the dean of the college of pathology. Her hair was more or less the same length, but kept back in a tight braid now more often than not. Her jumpers were a bit more trendy, but not by much. She seems, on the outside without her personal affects, to be the same woman he left behind five years ago.

It had taken Mycroft fourteen days to find him—he'd said he was going to fake his own death, and that if Mycroft wanted to help he would have to find Sherlock in order to do it—and when the knock had sounded through Molly's flat they'd been in bed. He had been on his way to undoing Molly for the second time of the morning. They of course ignored the knocking and even the buzzer until the knocking became more pronounced and urgent.

Molly had managed to get away from him and shrug on a long t-shirt as well as her robe to answer the door. Sherlock had been left behind in bed, his body flushed and wanting. At least until he'd heard his brother's _dulcet_ tones from the living room. It didn't quite count, but he certainly didn't want to be found naked in bed by his older brother—whatever came out of Mycroft's mouth would no doubt horrify Molly and he did _not_ want that.

Plans had been made and arranged for him to begin his work, and he was expected to get out the door as quickly as possible. There was barely time to take Molly to her bedroom and kiss her goodbye—kiss her and thank her and try to convince her to wait for him to return even though he made no claims of when that might be. It was without coherent reason, perhaps a lingering rush from his near-death experience two weeks before, but as he held her close he begged her to continue loving him.

He'd promised they would work things out when he got back.

"Of course she is a concern of mine."

Mycroft canted his gaze away with a telling lift of his brows—there was something he knew that Sherlock didn't, it seemed.

"Where is she?"

"I've been told not to inform you, Sherlock."

"I'll find her, you can't hide her from me."

"Sentimental attachment to your time together?" Sherlock had vowed a long time ago to never strike his brother—his brother's hand-to-hand combat skills had far outweighed his own since childhood. But that didn't mean that Mycroft didn't sometimes _dearly_ seem to be asking for it. Sherlock put down the tumbler of scotch Mycroft had put in his hand a half hour ago. It was mostly untouched anyway.

"I think that this is something more than sentiment. I'll find her regardless of what you do."

"And if she doesn't want to see you?"

"I'll hear that from her, thank you Mycroft." With that he stood and left his brother's offices.

The chance glances he'd seen of Molly hadn't been enough, apparently. Mycroft knew more of the story, had perhaps been a force of malice or ill-will towards Molly. Sherlock knew, and had known just days after parting from her, that the hot feeling which burned in his throat and clenched his heart was something more like love than anything else.

He'd feared that Moriarty had gotten his way, as he'd said goodbye to John—the madman had burned his heart out. But at the point where he had nothing—left alone in the dark—he still had Molly. She had given herself to him a long time ago, and—in those days when he was in essence waiting for Mycroft to find him—for the first time he given himself over to her. The burning feeling in his chest was his heart, where he kept Molly.

She still didn't know he was back—Mycroft hadn't informed her—because she went about her days as normal. As normal as could be when toting around a four year old girl. The sight of the two of them—Molly walking the child to school each morning—had struck the breath from his lungs. Though it was hard to devise a disguise which would fool Molly, he did so just to catch a close glimpse of the little girl who could only be his daughter—the times didn't line up any other way. He chose to ignore the sick thought that there had been some form of revenge against Molly from Moriarty's people—he liked to think his brother would protect the woman who saved his life and saved his soul after his fall.

From following them around he picked up that her name was Anna. She had her mother's tipped nose and mouth—her smiles could be particularly mischievous, just like Molly's—as well as Molly's long brown hair. She was thin and lanky, and the shape of her face was narrow and angular like his own. Her eyes were an eerie blue.

Sherlock had enough respect not to come to Molly while she had to deal with Anna—for some reason she didn't want him to know that he'd made her a mother, and that was a conversation she should be allowed to focus on without a little girl asking questions.

He waited several weeks, taking time to think about how to approach the subject. Was he expected to never show his face to her and Anna or was he to plunge into life as a family, devil-may-care? What did _he_ want to do—what kinds of things did he want to ask Molly? He decided that he would reintroduce himself to Molly at the coffee shop she would spend a few hours at every day after dropping off Anna at school.

Ten or eleven days ago, he'd caught a whiff of sweet chai tea as he'd passed by Molly—dressed as a regular no one with straight, flat boring hair—and so he bought a drink which he felt matched the scent and likely the taste for her. He skipped a drink of his own, too filled with nerves to contemplate adding caffeine to the mix. If he drank milk he was quite certain he would vomit. And then he made his way over to the secluded little nook where Molly curled up and read whenever she was here.

She had her feet stretched out on the little couch, and there was no other chair so Sherlock set the cup down where she could see it and leaned up against the partition wall. He'd scrubbed at his hair last night and then this morning again in the shower to loosen the last of the dye from it as best he could, and had let it dry back into his natural curls this morning.

Molly had frozen, her breath caught in her lungs, when his hand had entered her line of sight. Sherlock settled his weight better into the wall and stuffed his hands into his pockets. He tried to mentally force his diaphragm to relax, but it refused and he was only able to take short and shallow breaths. A year ago he'd realized that he was going to make it while hacking files in Botswana—he was going to come home. He saw the light at the end of the tunnel, and with that light he saw the rest of his life.

They were to slowly reacquaint themselves with one another—him learning about the years he'd missed, as well as easing himself back into his old life—and then live together at some point. If they got married, he wouldn't mind—though it had taken him three months to think about it—and if Molly wanted him to get on bended knee to propose before accepting then he wouldn't mind either. To be honest, he had factored out children—he was nearing forty as was Molly. Accounting for the time to settle into his life and a relationship meant another year or even two.

But Mycroft had been right—what if she had moved on in her life? What if the wait had been too hard on her, what if being a single mother had forced her to forget about her own concerns in the light of those of a baby? Sherlock tamped down on those feelings, instead just staring at Molly. She was beautiful, and Sherlock well understood what the phrase 'sight for sore eyes' meant now. Looking at her long hair and her strong hands was a kind of relief. It felt like coming home.

After a solid minute—more agonizing than when he'd gotten himself stabbed in Nepal and that had been _bad_—the woman he was fairly sure he loved reached down to grab the drink he'd brought to her. Her breaths seemed to be just as shallow as his own, now. When she was situated comfortably once again she took a sip and looked up at him for the first time.

Sherlock let himself slide down the wall so that he was sitting on the floor, wrapping his arms around his knees once he was there. His eyes never left hers as he pressed his mouth to his knee—he didn't want to open it and say the wrong things as he'd always always managed to. Molly's brown eyes were steady as she took another slow sip, clearing her throat as she set the drink down.

"She was born about a month premature, so she's a bit small for her age. And she sings off key."

_Does she know about me? Will she ever know about me if she doesn't? Can I still have you, like you said that day?_ Sherlock kept silent, not wanting to push things. The questions twittered and squawked in his mind, but he persevered. Mycroft had said that he'd been told not to divulge anything—why?

"I told Mycroft to keep you in the dark because I wanted you to come talk to me yourself. I didn't want you to find out whatever filtered version he's got on file." She let it hang in the air that she didn't trust his elder brother, at least with whatever future they might have together. Sherlock twitched a bit and forced himself to nod—show understanding and whatnot to get her to continue. "He's been honest enough to honor the will you wrote out—you've been paying for karate lessons for Annabelle, by the way. She loves them."

This was going too slowly—he didn't have any answers, or even hints to answers. And he wanted them badly. If she didn't want him in her life, then he'd like to know sooner than later—he most certainly didn't want her to tell him all about a family he could never have.

"Molly," his voice was soft, barely audible over the hustle of the coffee shop, "do you still love me?" Her words before were just stalling, avoiding the things they really needed to talk about. Even he knew that much. She was silent for a long time—over the last five years he had grown accustomed to 'a long time' meaning several days or even weeks but here with Molly the measurement seemed to dwindle down to seconds and minutes.

"Probably. I think so, if given half the chance—I just…well. Well I have Anna, I've _had_ Anna," she laughed and it sounded like a sob, "she kept me from going mad, probably. I had to protect her and raise her, and sometimes I told myself it was so that you could meet her and do those things with me too. Sometimes, though, sometimes I just protected and raised her without even thinking about you. It was as though one day a baby had appeared in my life that was mine and I had to care for. Those times it was like you'd never existed."

She looked down at her hands then.

"The first probably four, maybe five months I thought about you every day. I wondered if you were safe, if you had done any maths and _wondered_, I wondered if when you came back you would care for or about me and _the baby_." She wiped a single stray tear from her cheek before continuing.

"And then it became real when I felt her kick. And you just faded out of my mind, just nearly entirely. Because at that point I had to look out for her—it hit me that I couldn't look after you, that you were looking after yourself just fine. But she had no one but me. So yes—in some way, I do still love you Sherlock. But we can't just fall into bed again like we did—Anna can't just have you drop in and out of her life. I won't let that happen—we'll have to start from scratch Sherlock, and if we do you have to stay around regardless of what happens. Deal?"

"Deal." It was the best he was going to get, and he was going to take it.

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	2. And the Devil Will Dance

The follow-up to "Let the Devil Dance Again," titled "And the Devil Will Dance." This was difficult to write, because of the events of the 14th here in the US. It felt awkward and wrong to be writing about a father basically meeting/reuniting with his daughter when so many parents had lost their little ones. So please bear with me when I say that this is truly the end of this story.

I hope you all enjoy it :)

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They kept meeting for coffee, getting to know one another again. She tried to get him to talk about his travels and experiences, and he tried to deflect. Only when he curled up next to her on her couch, shielded from most of the rest of the coffee shop within her nook, would he open up a little. What he got in return were small tales of Anna. Her fascination with butterflies and fear of moths, and her ill-fated project for pet spiders. The little goldfish which was her responsibility to feed every day, and the last five names Anna had given it so far.

Molly also told him how John had insisted on helping her through the last few years, even as he got married and moved on with his own life. It had helped stave off his depression, giving him something to shake his head about with a smile when he thought of Sherlock—and seeing Anna, thinking he knew the circumstances of her conception, had made John think of Sherlock. In John's words, it was 'just like Sherlock' to accidentally father a child just hours before his suicide, and that was that.

They had their first date several weeks after he came back to her. Just a simple one, and Molly had her cousin look after Anna for the early evening. Sherlock knew that he didn't deserve her, taking her hand and walking slowly down the pavement towards the museum they were going to see. She was warm at his side, curling around his arm eventually.

"She wanted to know why Rosie was looking after her today, so I told her that I had a date." Sherlock let that sit for a moment, digesting just what it meant. Molly had said that she wanted to work up to his meeting Anna—she wanted to figure out how they were going to present Sherlock in the context of Anna's life. Molly had said no matter what, if he was to be part of it he had to be all in—there was to be no bowing in and out. What he and Molly ended up doing was their own business.

"And what did she think of that?" Molly hummed, the sound happy rather than contemplative.

"Anna has wanted me to find someone for about a year now. Started when she was old enough for the story days at the library and saw the other parents—_Mummy, I don't mind if you need me to have a Daddy_ I think is what she says most often. Though she has given serious thought to having two mums—twice the number of kisses on skinned knees you see, and twice as many sneaked sweets in her lunches too."

Sherlock nodded, a tiny smile quirking at his lips.

When they said goodnight—it was only seven but Molly wanted Anna at home in bed by eight—Sherlock laid a gentle kiss on Molly's forehead.

"That is for Anna," he said softly, "and this," he trailed his lips down her cheek, kissing the corner of her mouth, "is for you." Molly's lips were warm against his for a long moment. It felt different but the same as it had years ago, and he was incredibly grateful that he hadn't been shut out of her heart in the time they'd been apart. Maybe put into storage and hidden, but not evicted entirely. There was also the fact that he was beginning to feel excited, just stirrings at this point, at the prospect of meeting Anna.

She was a bright and beautiful little girl, and he couldn't wait to begin teaching her and helping her grow.

He was picking Molly up for a date several weeks later when Anna escaped from the door that was just closing. The little girl wrapped herself around Molly's leg, hiding most of her face against her mother's trouser-leg and peeking one eye up at him. Sherlock slowly crouched down to her level while Molly tutted and combed her fingers through their daughter's hair.

"Are you going to marry Mum?"

Molly's fingers paused briefly but returned to stroking Anna's hair. They'd only barely—_barely—_started sleeping together, such a question wasn't on the table yet in the least.

"Well, I don't even know you—why do you want to know?" Anna's face screwed up into a tiny scowl, her hands balling into fists in the fabric of Molly's trouser leg. Sherlock kept his face open and curious, keeping the cold detective at bay in the face of this very young person. A tiny human being.

"Because she's my Mum and if you marry her you'd be my Dad and I have to know things like that because I have to," she peeked out more as she spoke but quickly retreated, "and my name is Anna."

"I'm Sherlock, and," he leaned in a little stage-whisper to her, "I want to marry your Mum very much. But that's a secret, between you and me, Anna."

"Okay," she said, peeking out a little more to let him see her tiny smile. She looked exactly like her mother and Sherlock was quite sure that in fifteen years he would lie awake at night worrying if her dates were treating her properly. His heart was clenched painfully and he couldn't get enough air as Molly convinced Anna to go back inside to Aunty Rosie.

"So which is the secret, Mr. Holmes? That you're named Sherlock or that you want to get married?" Molly leaned up against the closed door and Sherlock stepped up to her, putting his arms low around her waist.

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

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